


The Haunting in Llangrannog

by DictionaryWrites



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Boggarts, Ficlet, Gen, Short One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-12
Updated: 2017-12-12
Packaged: 2019-02-14 01:39:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 752
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12997044
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DictionaryWrites/pseuds/DictionaryWrites
Summary: Short fic wherein Harry is a sort of monster hunter.By the coast in Ceredigion, there are screams that echo over the land.





	The Haunting in Llangrannog

"That one house is out on the 'ill a few miles up from Llangrannog. S'like a shack, it is, with the fence around 'alf rotted, and the roof is fallen through in places. That wailin' has been going on for years on years -- since my mamgu was a little girl, at least." The old fisherman whistles through his few remaining teeth, shaking his head and turning his dark eyes toward the fire. "Oh, it's an awful place, Mr Potter, sir. Even the Muggles got wind of it, and they've all these tales about a Black Nun hauntin' the area. I know you's huntin' monsters and that, but you might want to leave this'un alone."

"Why?" Harry asks. On the table beside him, his coffee is steaming, untouched. The pub is out on the edge of the village - a wizarding establishment sparsely populated by fisherman and ingredient harvesters that value being so close to the coastline. Outside, the wind is howling, and in the distance Harry can hear the harsh crash of the sea against the cliffs. "What's so bad about this one?"

"The screaming," the old man says. He shakes his head, very slowly. "The screaming... It carries on the air on the quiet nights, rings all through the town, and I hear it sometimes when there's a seaward wind and I'm making my way out the 'arbour. Mr Potter, it ain't anything like I never heard, or even studied back in school, all them years ago." The old man looks as pale as parchment, and drinks heavily from his glass. Harry frowns slightly, his brow furrowing, and he pushes his glasses up his nose. "It ain't no ghost, or a poltergeist - young Missy Llewellyn came back from 'er schooling and went out there to sort it out, she said. She's so pale these days, sir, and don't say a thing unless you ask her direct, like. Them screams is all she hears."
    
    
                                                 ---
    
    

Harry hears the screaming from a mile away. They are tortured, ragged, like some desperate soul yelling for some kind of help, not because they think it might come, but because they are so terrified they can do nothing else. It reminds him of the war, of the piercing way Hermione's screams had cut through him all those years ago, but sick to his stomach, he walks on.

The shack stands alone, its roof ripped nearly to pieces by the high winds, and the yells grow ever louder, ringing in his ears unavoidably and inescapably.

There is nothing in the old shack but some moth-eaten furniture and an enchanted wine casket that sits in the very corner of the room - Harry's heard of something similar make its way through the Muggle presses, haunted or whatever. It's hard to concentrate with that awful sound ringing in his ears, but it's obvious enough where the sound is coming from.

The thing that crawls from the casket is half-formed and wheezing, trying desperately to transform itself into a person-like form: Harry sees its corpse-grey skin and its bulging, yellow eyes, but the Boggart can become nothing even remotely recognizable enough for Harry to be scared of it. Its mouth, haggard and lacking lips or a lower set of teeth, is still letting out that desperate, desperate sound -- Harry doesn't think he's ever felt so sorry for a monster, and with no idea  _why_  it could let out such keens of terror.

He stands in the shack's doorway, his wand loosely held at his side as the wind howls louder and sea whips itself into a frenzy. The Boggart, wheezing in breath like a dying thing, goes suddenly silent. Harry feels the loss of sound in his ears, feels them ring strangely in the abrupt relief, and the Boggart crumbles into dust.
    
    
                                                 ---
    
    

"What's this, mate?" Ron asks. The sun is shining in the garden, and Harry glances up from his notes on the case in Ceredigion, settled as he is on the small patio chair he'd decided to put into place. Ron stands in the doorway of Harry's workshop, made up from an old shed: on the outside table, against the shed wall, stands the casket he'd taken from the Llangrannog shack.

He had managed to dispel the charm that lit the box from the inside -- it had reminded him of the Dursleys' fridge, but in reverse -- but in the wan autumn light, the mirrored walls of the casket glint in the light.

"Nothing, Ron," Harry says, shaking his head. "Nothing important, anymore."


End file.
